Dream Wife – F.U.U. Feat. Fever Dream

At the end of last week the noisy rock band Dream Wife shared a video for “F.U.U.” The track is one of the best from their self-titled debut album, and the video is complete rascal-fuel. This stuff is pumped up all the way to eleven. The charge for Dream Wife here is to contain, not express, the spasms of creative energy. There’s almost too much of everything going on.

Icelandic vocalist, Rakel Mjöll, bassist Bella Podpadec, and guitarist Alice Go formed Dream Wife as a project whilst studying at University in Brighton. There have been art-project bands before. Let’s not list them. What distinguishes Dream Wife is the real impulse, authentic emotion, and far-reaching awareness of the game. The emotional content of their debut was tangible. The artists’ choice of form is the most appropriate vehicle for issues of this type.

Urgent, unsettling, reassuring, and real issues populated an album that evolved beyond its own root. Content carried form into something new and real.

This track, “F.U.U. featuring Fever Dream” is delivered like the product of feminist and punk heroes that fucked in a closet during a political rally. The energy is fantastic, the targeting-system is laser-sharp, and the vocal track alone should be extracted and preserved as an example of ‘best in breed’.

The mantra-like line “I’m gonna fuck you up, gonna cut you up, gonna fuck you up…. then I’m gonna fuck you up, gonna cut you up, gonna fuck you up…” is going to expel some listeners – but it’s going to draw others into the Dream Wife spell. By the time we’re screaming “I spy, with my-little-eye, bad BITCHES!” the voodoo is really working, and this track secures itself as a go-to dance floor filler for clubs of a certain kind.

The video, directed by Aidan Zamiri, places the band inside a wrestling ring where they psyche-out any contenders, and hype the rest of us to their cause. A good deal of action happens in that ring. The lighting is perfect. Swirls of focus, and the pace of cuts, articulate the storm that’s raging. If confidence is sexy – there’s not an ugly image on screen. Everyone here is here to do war. The good kind. It’s wonderful.

If you’re looking for an easy-access into the world vision of Dream Wife, or an answer to the question, “Yeah, but do they mean it?” “F.U.U. feat Fever Dream” is the highly articulate outburst that you’re looking for. This is ranting as artform, and it’s mad made good.